Drax joins Powering Past Coal Alliance

By Drax Group | April 10, 2018

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On April 9, Drax Group, owner of the largest power station in Western Europe, signed up to the Powering Past Coal Alliance, a global coalition of counties, states, cities and businesses committed to ending coal generation.

The company’s involvement in the initiative was announced by the Rt Hon Claire Perry MP, UK Minister of State for Energy and Clean Growth, on Monday April 9 at the Bloomberg Future of Energy Summit in New York.

Minister of State for Energy and Clean Growth, Claire Perry, said, “The U.K. leads the world in tackling climate change—we have reduced emissions by more than 40 percent since 1990. By phasing out traditional coal power, we are not only taking active steps to tackle climate change, we are also protecting the air we breathe by reducing harmful pollution. The Powering Past Coal Alliance sends a clear signal that the time for unabated coal fired electricity has well and truly passed.”

Will Gardiner, Drax Group CEO, said, “Unabated coal does not have a long term role to play in our low carbon future. The government made it very clear earlier this year that it wants the U.K.’s power sector to be coal free in 2025 – and we will achieve that, and possibly even beat it.”

“We’re exploring options for repowering our remaining coal units to use sustainable biomass and gas which we believe could help us to become coal free even earlier than the 2025 deadline.”

In the U.K. there has already been a dramatic fall in power generation from coal—an 84 percent reduction in the last five years, and a major shift towards lower carbon technologies. Friday (April 6 2018) saw Great Britain have its second coal-free 24-hour period since 1882.

Drax Power Station has transformed itself to become the largest decarbonization project in Europe. It is the largest single site renewable power generator in the UK since it started using biomass instead of coal in three out of its six generating units. Sixty-five percent of the power it produces is now renewable—enough for 4 million households.